News

Principals urged to monitor pupil truancy at earlier age

S
chool principals will be required by law to alert the state when children aged under six are frequently absent, as part of the government’s proposed child-protection reforms.

The 87,237 children aged under six currently attending primary schools are exempt from a legal obligation on principals to notify the National Education Welfare Board (NEWB) when they go missing for 20 days or more.

At present, the law only applies to children from the age of six, the compulsory school-commencement age, up to 16. Frances Fitzgerald, the minister for children and youth affairs, believes lowering the age threshold will allow social workers to intervene earlier to protect vulnerable children.

The report of the Independent Child Death Review Group, published last week, showed that chronic school absenteeism was a feature in many of the 196 cases of children and young people who died after coming to the attention of the Health Service Executive